


Under Control

by Buckysaur



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Angst and Feels, Anxiety, Canon-Typical Violence, Character Study, Dark, Gen, Hurt Sam Winchester, I apologise, I have a lot of feelings about Sam Winchester okay, I'm not sure where this came from, Mental Health Issues, Mental Instability, Meta, Metafiction, Sad, Sam Winchester and Mental Health Issues, Sam Winchester-centric, Sam is a puppy wrapped up in a cinnamon roll that must be protected, Self-Doubt, This is mostly just me rambling, This is really fucking dark okay, and expelling some of my feels into the world, of sorts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-16
Updated: 2016-01-16
Packaged: 2018-05-14 07:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5735122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Buckysaur/pseuds/Buckysaur
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sam has a handle on his anxiety. He really does. (He really doesn't.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Under Control

**Author's Note:**

> This just sort of came to be. I wrote it in one go, and it's unbeta'd, so make of that as you will. Frankly, I'm not sure what else to say.
> 
> This is dark as fuck.

Sam has a handle on his anxiety. He really does. He couldn’t be a hunter if he didn’t. Dean wouldn’t let him. They both know the deadly consequences of a head not quite screwed on right in the middle of a hunt. They’ve both seen it. Seen the bloodbaths it creates.

Of course, no hunter can truly claim to be mentally well adjusted. Like Dorothy had said: you’re not a hunter until you’ve come back from the dead at least once. And really, you don’t come back from the dead without it knocking a few screws loose upstairs.

Sam sometimes isn’t even sure he has any screws left in their place at all. Maybe his head just rattles. Maybe they roll around uncontrollably, bouncing around the place when he ducks or runs away from the bullets flying around his ears. The claws trying to tear him apart.

It’s duct tape and superglue up in his brain. Angelic duct tape and superglue, sure, he has Cas to thank for that. But that doesn’t mean he’s stable. Doesn’t mean he’s _sane_ now, just because he no longer has those memories  — and really, sometimes he wonders if he still does. It’s hard to separate imagination from memories. Hard to differentiate between the things he has nightmares about at night, and the things that must have happened in the cage. Sometimes he wonders if they are the same things. Sometimes he wonders if he’s just torturing himself with false memories.

But he has a handle on it. He can hold a gun and aim and shoot without wavering. He can kill without hesitation. And isn’t that fucked up?

Once upon a time this was about saving people, hunting things. Now it seems to have deteriorated to just the latter. And they try, they _try_ to save. Try to rescue and remedy and resuscitate.

But he still has nightmares. And hides them from Dean.

He knows his brother would understand, of course. Fuck, he’s had his own share of hell to deal with. That he still deals with. He could hardly blame Sam for it.

And yet.

He just doesn’t want to seem weak. Dean has always been the perfect hunter. More like their father. More ready to do what needs to be done. Sam always wants to find another way —  _needs_ to find another way, one with the least amount of casualties.

In a manner of speaking, he’s instilled that method of thinking within his older brother, too. It has become Dean’s tagline of sorts: there’s always another way. Always. Always, Sammy. And we will find it.

Except.

Sometimes Sam just needs to get out of his own head so badly. Needs to claw his way out of this damaged psyche he can’t always readily accept as his own. Who would want that? Who would keep going like that?

Surely, only an idiot. Suicidal moron. Or perhaps the opposite.

Maybe Sam is just a masochist.

He presses the silver blade right through the angel’s ribs. He can hear the bone splintering apart, shattering inside of the sloppy mess of blood and flesh that makes up the vessel’s chest. White-blue light floods his vision, and he doesn’t even flinch even as he looks away to avoid getting his eyes burnt out.

He’s not sure if the dying light can do that, but he’s not about to take any chances on it. He’s crazy, not insane.

Or. Whatever.

With a sickening wet sound, he retracts the blade from the empty vessel’s chest and pushes it aside. He doesn’t take a moment to mourn its original owner. Can’t afford it. Can’t allow himself to _think_. As much as he wants to break free of his mind, he’s really fucking stuck in it. So he might as well make the stay as pleasant as possible.

The body falls heavily, limply to the floor, and Sam steps over it — stalks into the other room where Dean is just pushing another body, still glowing, onto a pile of lifeless ones.

“All clear?” Sam asks, taking a moment to wipe his blade onto the curtains, getting rid of the blood.

“All clear,” Dean replies gruffly.

Another town saved.

Maybe.

**Author's Note:**

> If you enjoyed this fic, or if you have constructive criticism for me, please let me know in a comment ❤️


End file.
